Comcast's creation of a mobile division, plus its activation of the Verizon mobile virtual network operator and participation in the broadcast incentive auction (see 1510270041) indicate it's potentially getting into the mobile business, said Credit Suisse analyst Omar Sheikh in a note to investors Monday. A mobile product offering would help strengthen ties to existing customers and allow potential growth with new ones, Sheikh said. Saying Comcast's X1 platform investment is "paying off," he raised the target price on Comcast from $69 to $75. Sheikh said the 90,000 video subscribers added in the past 12 months are driven largely by X1 and its increasing customer engagement and cutting churn. With only 40 percent of Comcast's video customer base penetrated, Sheikh said, "we see the significant investment in the rollout driving further improvement in cable video operating and financial metrics over the long term."

Sony shipped 2.7 million TVs in Q1 ended June 30, a 4 percent increase from Q1 a year earlier, the company said in a Friday earnings report. But Sony left unchanged its May forecast that it will ship 12 million TVs in the year ending March 31, a slight decline from the 12.2 million sets it shipped last fiscal year. Unlike in recent quarters, Sony gave no breakout on the Q1 profit performance of its TV business. But operating profit in Sony’s core CE sector, Home Entertainment & Sound, jumped 85.3 percent to $197 million ($1 = 103 yen), though revenue from TV sales declined 1.6 percent to $1.6 billion, mainly due to the impact from the weaker yen, Sony said.

MicroVision sees laser-based 3D-sensing technology called “LIDAR” as an “important growth area for us,” CEO Alexander Tokman said on a Thursday earnings call. He defined LIDAR -- an acronym for light detection and ranging -- as a sensing method that uses pulse-laser light to measure ranges, surfaces and volumes. “Think of it as a detection system that works on the principle of radar, but uses light from a laser as a source,” Tokman said. Many top CE companies “are defining new products for 2018 and beyond that use LIDAR-like technologies,” he said. They include “near-field” 3D sensing for gesture-recognition uses, “mid-field” sensing for “robo-guidance” applications and “far-field” sensing for use in autonomous vehicles, he said. MicroVision believes its “baseline capability” in LIDAR technology “is superior” to those of its competitors, he said. “We've garnered interest from some major consumer electronics OEMs based on what we have demonstrated with paper models of our superior capabilities in this area,” Tokman said. “In order to move to the next stage, we plan to create working prototypes, which could be validated and verified by our prospective partners for products starting as early as late 2017 and beyond. The investments we're making today in 3D sensing technology are necessary precursors for tapping into the growth opportunity we expect to see from this emerging market.”

Rovi volume slipped 2 percent in Q2 year-on-year to $125.2 million with an increase in service provider revenue offsetting declines in consumer electronics and analog content protection revenue, said the company’s Thursday earnings release. Rovi CEO Tom Carson attributed better than expected results to the renewal of an IP licensing agreement with Verizon that runs into next decade. The company swung to a $9.4 million loss compared with $3.3 million profit in Q2 2015, it said. It expects to close its buy of TiVo this quarter. Rovi has eight of the top 10 U.S. pay-TV providers under license, six of which came on board in the past six quarters, said Carson. The company projects 2016 revenue of $490 million to $520 million. Rovi guides are in use in 142 million pay-TV households, excluding prepaid licenses, said the company. During the quarter, Dish implemented voice remote capability powered by Rovi’s Conversation Services, Rovi said, and the Fan TV app launched voice search on iOS, Android mobile and Android TV platforms. Japan's KDDI adopted Rovi G-Guide HTML on its new Android TV based IPTV set-top box, and Evolution Digital announced its latest set-top box with an eGuide interactive guide based on Rovi’s Fan TV platform, it said. Shares closed up Friday 2.3 percent to $18.81.

Calling itself “the biggest technology company you’ve never heard of,” Hisense debuted its Hisense-usa.com website “to better serve and engage” with consumers, it said in an emailed news release Friday. The website showed only Hisense-branded TVs, not Sharp TVs, which follows recent moves Hisense has made to position its homegrown brand in the spotlight rather than the Sharp brand that's more familiar to U.S. customers. Hisense bought Sharp’s TV factory in Rosarito, Mexico, last year along with North American licensing rights to the Sharp brand for five years (see 1508030046). A Hisense spokeswoman told us: "Despite the licensing agreement, Sharp TVs are still displayed on Sharp's website." At a spring luxury technology event, the company said Hisense is the lead brand for its TVs. The website redesign is part of Hisense's mission, announced at CES, to become the No. 3 TV manufacturer in the U.S. by 2021, it said Friday. The website’s overhauled TV section allows shoppers to filter searches by screen size, resolution and features. Product registration via the website is “seamless and hassle-free,” said Hisense, with a dedicated support page offering downloadable quick-start guides, user manuals and spec sheets for each model.

Dougherty & Company downgraded Outerwall from “neutral” to “sell” Monday after Apollo Global Management’s announcement it plans to buy the company for $52 a share. Outerwall has been exploring strategic alternatives since March, said analyst Steven Frankel. The Apollo offer is a 51 percent premium to where the stock was trading before the news the Outerwall board had begun running a process and 11 percent higher than its close Friday, said Frankel. Dougherty doesn’t expect a rival bid.

Microsoft now exceeds 350 million “active devices” using Windows 10, giving the operating system “the fastest adoption rate of any prior Windows release,” CEO Satya Nadella said on a Tuesday earnings call. “We continue to pursue our goal of moving people from needing Windows to choosing Windows to loving Windows.” Microsoft in two weeks will launch a Windows 10 “anniversary update” that will include “a significant step forward in security,” he said. Shares of the company, which also reported earnings, rose 5.3 percent to $55.91in trading Wednesday.

Comcast produced the second-to-worst level of customer satisfaction this year across many industries, while Amazon tied for second best, in the 2016 Temkin Web Experience Ratings report. Temkin Group, a customer experience research firm, reports annually on how satisfied consumers are with large organizations across many industries. Comcast TV service scored 29 percent, which is 9 points below the TV service industry average, and Comcast internet scored 30 percent, 8 points below the ISP average, Temkin said. Charter and Cox also landed in the bottom 10, scoring 35 percent apiece. Cablevision, Dish Network and Bright House Networks tied for best among TV providers at 46 percent. AOL took the highest ISP rating at 51 percent, followed by AT&T (45 percent), Cablevision (44 percent) and Verizon (43 percent). On the top end of the ratings, Amazon scored 75 percent, handily outperforming the retail industry average by 19 points. Its Kindle business beat the computer industry average by the same amount, scoring 73 percent overall.

Viacom "has fallen too far too fast" to be successfully turned around, at least in the next 12 months, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker said in a note to investors Monday as the bank downgraded the cable programmer's Class B shares to "underperform" from "market perform." Previewing Q2 earnings, Ryvicker said CBS and Time Warner Cable are the "most stable/least risky." For Viacom, Wells Fargo said the problems include negotiating subscription VOD contracts (see 1606170013) and Comcast putting Viacom's Spike channel on a lower tier. That Viacom B is trading above CBS, Comcast and 21st Century Fox A shares "just doesn't make sense to us," Ryvicker wrote. Viacom B closed Monday at $44.36, down 1.9 percent. Viacom didn't comment.

DTS said it amended a credit agreement dated Oct. 1 with Wells Fargo and other lenders for a term loan and revolving line of credit to buy intellectual property rights from iBiquity. The amendment permits the IP transaction under the asset disposition and liens covenants of the credit agreement and requires DTS to make prepayments of $20 million of the term loan to be paid in installments of $10 million by July 15, $5 million by Sept. 30 and $5 million by Dec. 30, it said in an SEC filing Thursday. The scheduled principal installment payments under the credit agreement are unchanged. Prepayments will be applied to the scheduled principal installments under the credit agreement in inverse order of maturity, beginning with the final principal balance due Oct. 1, 2020, and will be made with cash and investments on hand and operating cash flows, it said.